The Magician's Witch

The Beginning in the End

A few more years went by. Collin and Sanaz got married in Eilis' backyard six months after they got engaged. Nine months after that, Sanaz gave birth to a little girl named Cajal. She had big, brown eyes like her mother. Collin wept when he held his daughter for the first time.

Eilis, along with Aleah and her husband and Karim and his wife, as well as their parents all pitched in to help the new parents around the house. Eilis loved playing with Cajal, holding her for hours while Sanaz napped or did small chores around the house.

"I remember when Aria and Ronan were this small," Eilis said wistfully one day as she rocked Cajal. The baby slept contentedly, dreaming of whatever babies dreamed about. "It goes by so fast. I still can't believe they're so big now. It's like I blinked and all of a sudden, they're grown."

"I remember when Aria was a baby just starting to crawl," Sanaz reminisced as she folded dozens of onesies and paired tiny socks together. "She would zoom around that apartment like she had jet packs strapped to her feet."

Eilis laughed. "She has always had more energy than Ronan. Ronan is more reserved, conscious of each move he makes. He is very precise."

"Is she still hanging out with Dara," Sanaz inquired.

Eilis nodded, not looking away from the snoozing baby in her arms. "She's loving it. She is really in her element. She decided she wants to volunteer to build houses for Habitats for Humanity, so she can get some hands-on experience."

Sanaz giggled, shaking her head. "The houses she builds are probably going to be the sturdiest, most well-proportioned houses in the development."

Eilis grinned. "I just hope she remembers to play nice with others. Sometimes, she is a little too much like her father."

Aria had come home one day in a black mood because she had gotten into it with the foreman of the construction site. She was a fifteen-year-old girl standing up to a man with at least twenty years of experience, telling him he was using the wrong supports for the load-bearing wall.

"It's going to give out in like ten years," she complained to her mom as she stabbed at her dinner that night. "And then whoever lives there will have to pay to have it fixed, and it's really expensive to fix a load-bearing wall, especially if the people living there don't have a lot of money to begin with. He wouldn't even listen to me!"

"Sometimes, people have a hard time believing that someone much younger than them knows more than they do," Eilis tried to soothe her daughter. "He has been doing his job the same way for a long time. To him, telling him that he is doing his job incorrectly is like someone telling you that you're holding your violin bow wrong."

Aria grimaced. "So, what do I do," Aria asked, sounding dejected.

"Just do the best you can," Eilis told her. "Don't focus so much on what other people do. I know that can be hard, but concentrate on doing your best work, not someone else's."

"Yeah, and maybe in a few years, you can teach others how to mix cement," Ronan teased Aria.

Aria scoffed and glared at him. "Concrete. Cement is an ingredient in concrete. Get it right."

Eilis bit her lip to keep from laughing.

A few days later, Aria came home ecstatic; the foreman had apologized to her and had ordered the correct supports.

Dara had taken Aria on as a junior intern, showing her the ins and outs of construction, even taking her to some of his job sites. At this stage in the game, Dara was semi-retired (at least that was what he called it), while his son ran the show. But he showed no signs of slowing down or hanging up his hat. Laleh would chuckle and shake her head, but never stopped him from going to work.